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Mississauga moves to cut off 'vexatious' complainers

If you live in Mississauga and have “municipal squirrels” nibbling on your window panes or a nearby rooster waking you up at dawn, don’t bother complaining to your councillor.

Those were just two of the many “frivolous and vexatious” complaints from residents that city councillors say are eating away their time, exhausting staff and costing taxpayers.

On Wednesday, fed-up councillors voted for a new rule allowing frequent frivolous complainers to be cut off from city hall.

“There comes a time when the cost to the taxpayer becomes extremely high,” Mayor Hazel McCallion told council shortly before the new policy received initial approval at a committee meeting, with final approval expected July 2.

“I get five calls a day from one individual — that’s a record.”

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She stressed that legitimate complaints from residents will continue to remain a priority, but said numerous staff are spending many hours a week dealing with residents who just won’t accept the city’s decision on certain complaints.

Asked for an example, Councillor Nando Iannicca said there have been so many, but named the resident who was “concerned that the City of Mississauga was not paying for the replacement of her windows because municipal squirrels had eaten away the wood frames of the windows of her home.”

Councillor Pat Saito also said there are too many examples to count.

“I had a resident call me once and tell me not to let a rooster (in a nearby farm) wake them up at 5 a.m.

“To the resident making the complaint, it is very valid. It’s very delicate. The resident has to feel that I’m going to listen to their issues.”

But like other councillors, Saito says that too often, residents just won’t accept the answer they’re given.

“It starts to become frivolous. It can use a tremendous amount of staff time. My staff are on the phone for hours, we do site visits, but they keep coming back on exactly the same issue.” She said often a resident’s issue is actually a private dispute with a neighbour.

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“We tell them that there is no bylaw infraction, but they don’t want to accept that, so they demand the bylaw be changed. Or we have residents who like to walk around their neighbourhood and write a list of all the possible infractions, even though they aren’t impacted in any way. We need this policy that allows us to bring an end to things.”

The city says the issue of frivolous complaints has been dealt with in places such as Oakville, Calgary and Los Angeles. It’s not clear if those cities have hard and fast rules like those Mississauga is set to adopt.

The new policy doesn’t apply to complaints involving staff or council. The definition of a frivolous and vexatious complaint is one that intends to “embarrass or annoy the recipient, or is part of a pattern of conduct by the complainant that amounts to an abuse of the complaints process.”

Such a pattern occurs when, “on three or more occasions,” a complaint comes forward on a matter staff have already dealt with.

Harassing behaviour while filing a complaint also triggers the new policy, which outlines potential enforcement tactics such as warning letters, cutting off contact points with the city, and, in extreme cases, putting into action the city’s workplace violence policy.

Resident Irene Wojcik Gabon, who often writes letters to council and is a keen observer of city hall, said she sees such abuses routinely by residents. But the new policy concerns her.

“Is this a fair treatment of residents in the public interest? Perhaps (when some complaints are filed) there is a communication problem on both sides. Or what if there’s a language barrier that’s really the problem?”

Gabon says the notion of cutting people off from a public institution in regard to a particular matter might be hard for some residents to swallow, even if their behaviour is unreasonable.

“But I believe there is a lot of staff time wasted, based on what I have seen and heard.”

McCallion addressed possible concerns with the policy, stating that all residents will always be treated with complete respect and be given the benefit of the doubt.

“It’s got to be administered with tender love and care, there’s no doubt about it.”

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